


there is a light that never goes out

by Biscay



Category: Black Mirror
Genre: F/F, Hated in the Nation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 21:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13644453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biscay/pseuds/Biscay
Summary: Karin never signed up for a shadow.





	there is a light that never goes out

**Author's Note:**

> this has been kicking around on my computer for literal years (I started this as soon as I saw hitn, I love these two SO MUCH). the main delay with posting was the lack of title, but if Charlie Brooker can name his black mirror stuff after random Smiths lyrics, so the fuck can I.

_15th May_

Karin never signed up for a shadow, but the Superintendent believes in mentoring, training opportunities, all kinds of bullshit that sounds great when you're not the one stuck babysitting teenagers who vomit all over your crime scenes. Karin could, theoretically, challenge the decision and foist the newbie on someone else, but the Super has been very understanding of various issues in Karin's personal life, so this is really the least she can do. 

Karin wonders briefly if the shadowing is for the benefit of the new transfer or herself. She shakes the thought from her mind, but doesn't look at her protégée's file when it flashes into her inbox. She doesn't feel like anyone's role model.

She wants to find Blue annoying. She's got a ridiculous name, for starters, and an earnestness that reminds her of herself when she first joined the force. Karin leads the way past flashing lights and nosy reporters and decides that she's going to be fair.

Jo Powers' murder is both gruesome and high-profile, and Karin begins mentally preparing a speech; threatening enough to put the fear of god into Blue about breathing any details to the press, and maybe consider an assignment with someone else. Someone less of a bitch. 

Karin pulls her focus back to the crime scene and observes the blood-spattered walls. They might be enough to scare Blue off in themselves – but she kneels to get a better look at Powers' lacerated body, asks all the right questions, and Karin's impressed.

“Get in,” Karin tells her, when they’re done looking over the crime scene. She's not letting Blue brave London's streets alone. They don't know it's not the husband yet and if there’s a murderer on the loose the last thing she needs is her shadow getting slashed up on her first night under her wing.

“Honestly, I'll get the tube-”

“Get in.”

Blue does as she says. Karin bites back a smile. This relationship might work.

-

Karin tries not to sound too impressed when Blue talks about her work on the Rannoch case. Blue's not thirty and worked a more high-profile case than her. Karin asks about her background in computer forensics, and quickly realises why she's been assigned to her; Karin's practical experience coupled with Blue's knowledge of cybercrime sounds, in theory, like an extremely effective combination.

Karin puffs on her e-cigarette; Blue disapproves but is smart enough to say nothing. Karin drops her home, drives back to her own place, and tries not to think about how Blue would disapprove of her dinner of stale Pringles. She vows to take a smoothie for breakfast tomorrow.

* * *

_16th May_

Karin hates the cognitive-bullshit-therapy she's forced to attend every time she works a particularly unsavoury case. She sits at the back of mandatory seminars about managing trauma and destructive behaviours and tries not to yawn too obviously. The power of positive thinking has never worked particularly well for her, but Karin wakes with renewed energy and focus. She's got an active, high-profile case, and a new addition to the team who seems to know what she’s doing. She makes the smoothie she thought about yesterday; despite the best of intentions it's the closest she's come to a nutritious meal in weeks. She's thriving.

Karin's good mood comes crashing down around her when she sees that Blue has arrived in the office before her, and is cosied up next to Nick. He's more eager to please than usual and it doesn't do much for Karin's ego, but she can see the appeal; younger, blonder, infinitely less likely to call him shit-for-brains than the original. She sharply warns him off, warns Blue as an afterthought. 

“What, Nick?”

“I just want my team working together properly.” Karin focuses on the road, which saves her from having to meet Blue's eyes.

“Nothing to worry about there. Honest.”

“Take it from me, you cannot manage this job and a relationship.”

“You said before – you're divorced,” Blue says it like a question, like she knows she's on thin ice, but Karin's snapped at her half a dozen times already so what's one more?

“Long hours. Emotional unavailability. You think the Rannoch case was hard, try seeing that and coming home to pretend everything's fine.” Cynicism is Karin's trademark but there's a special venom she reserves for talking about relationships. Usually victims', occasionally office romances. Sometimes her marriage. “I’m being patronising again, aren’t I?”

“Of the dickhead bosses I’ve had since I joined, you don’t even rank in the top five.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere. And I’m not your boss, I’m your -”

“Babysitter?”

“Mentor.”

Karin is saved from the conversation spiralling even further down the path of unprofessionalism by their arrival at Blue’s apartment block.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Thanks for the lift,” Blue says, “and your ex? It’s her loss.”

* * *

_17th May_

Karin gets the call about the ADI in Jo Powers' brain at 5am, and swings by to pick up Blue on the way to the morgue. She doesn't have time for breakfast. 

“I read about the Granular Project when it was first implemented,” Blue says, swiping away at her phone, “over fifty countries have their own variation on the ADI. Britain's is most similar to the model developed in Stockholm that's used within the EU, but we had to pay through the nose for the technology.”

"Fucking Brexit," Karin mutters, focused on the road. She'd caught bits about the ADI's introduction into the ecosystem following the colony collapse, but it had been shortly followed by her marriage's collapse, and any interests or concerns she might have had about robot bees had fallen to the wayside.

“Though the costs associated with the project are projected to decrease every year, the initial cost is thought to be around two billion, though a figure has never been made public.”

As the roads become less congested and the crowded suburbs of London begin to give way to Kent countryside, Blue eventually trails off. It's not that Karin doesn't respect her knowledge, but her questions can wait until she can speak to the professionals. It's why they're going, after all, and absolutely nothing to do with pride about asking her subordinate - partner or not - for help.

The ADIs, it turns out, are fucking creepy. After seeing one retrieved from the pain center of a woman's brain, it's hard to see them as anything else, but even though Karin's never had time for tree-hugging, all-natural hippy philosophy, there's something deeply unnerving about the metallic humming and the prospect of exponential expansion.

Blue's questions are intelligent, relevant – she gets a job offer, for fuck's sake. She falls back into quiet as they head back into London, but Karin swallows her pride.

“I’m sorry.” she says.

Blue looks up from her phone, where she’s gone back to scrolling away, and across at Karin. “For what?”

Karin stares at the road ahead. “For before.”

Blue doesn’t ask her to elaborate. A few seconds pass as she accepts the apology, then she launches into a verbal bullet-point list of thoughts about the case. The secrecy, the security flaws, the funding. 

“Almost everything else I can square away,” Blue says as they get snarled up in traffic on their reentry to London. Her hand gestures grow wilder as she talks, becomes more passionate about what she’s saying, “but there were alternatives to ADIs. Funding for mechanical pollination, dispersion tunnels; the technology was there, but the government went for the most expensive option.”

“Can you think why?”

Blue shakes her head. “Their pitch was good, but it wasn’t that good. They’re keeping stuff from us and I don’t know why.”

“That’s my feeling too.” Karin says. “It’s been - helpful to have you here today.”

“Well, I am your shadow,” Blue says with a smile and it’s ridiculous – stress and loneliness and she's probably old enough to qualify for a mid-life crisis – but there's an element of possession in it that Karin would deny to the grave that she enjoys.

* * *

By the time they get back to London, the NCA have shown up. In months to come, it seems unbelievable that there was a time when Karin didn't know Shaun Li's face and name. That there was a time before every finger in the country was pointed angrily at him, for pushing that button like a nuclear launch.

Karin feels like a petulant child - this is _her_ case – but Blue saves the day, connecting the deaths to the hashtags. She barely hides a smirk when Shaun pulls the same confused expression as her when Blue explains the significance of the deathto hashtag, and she feels a surge of pride as Blue spells out concepts to a senior National Crime Agency official. Maybe this case won't get taken away from them yet.

-

They're on their way to Clara's in Shaun's ridiculous driverless car; he's making calls to his bosses, Blue's in contact with Rasmus, and Karin's feeling totally eclipsed. Shaun is heading up the armed response unit and Blue looks at her, nervousness flitting across her features. 

“You did really well earlier,” Karin says quietly. 

There's no false modesty, which Karin appreciates. “You gave me the idea, anyway.”

“I did?”

“Wishing them dead. Reminded me of the tweets.”

“Right.”

“We're a good team.”

* * *

After Clara the last thing Karin wants to do it put her life in the hands of a fucking intelligent machine, but Shaun demands that they both get back in the self-driving car. The drive to London is excruciating; the seat next to Shaun is empty and the silence is deafening. Blue sits next to Karin, who doesn't have any words of comfort but Blue leans gently against her, too exhausted to sit up straight. Karin lets her.

The car draws to a stop outside Vauxhall Cross, which Karin more or less expected. 

“What the hell is this?”

“Both of you, please follow me.” 

“I'd like to get back to work.”

Shaun presses a button and the car doors slide upwards. “I'd like you to come with me.”

Karin’s younger self would be in awe of the grand building, Signing the Official Secrets Act is purely symbolic, she knows her signature's not worth the paper it's written on, but she can’t help the anger at the government trying to intimidate and control her, even now.

Shaun offers to drop them home, but Karin’s car is still at the office and even though he can probably access any scrap of information about her with a flick of his fingers, Karin doesn’t want him to know where she lives. Blue turns him down as well and his face is a blank mask. 

Karin wants to make herself the largest coffee in the world but sleep tonight will be hard enough as it is. She debriefs the team and by the time she leaves the office it's dark. Blue follows her outside. 

“Come on, I'll drop you home,” Karin says. Blue looks over at her and she remembers the nightmares she had after she first joined the force. Nightmares that still sometimes haunt her. 

“I don't want to be alone,” she says.

Karin brings her back to hers.

* * *

Karin doesn't have sex with her; not now, at least. Blue mutters something about taking the sofa when Karin walks her up to the apartment, but Karin throws some pyjamas and a toothbrush at her and tells her to go to the bathroom, then get in the damn bed.

Blue slips in beside Karin’s carefully still form. Karin's had women in this bed since _she_ left, although nights spent dozing in a beer-coloured haze vastly outnumber those spent with a warm body by her side. Inviting a subordinate home is not protocol, nightmares or no, and Blue's a bright, pretty thing, she must have someone else she can stay with-

“My housemate's shit,” she says, as though reading Karin's mind, “she's nice, you know, but shit at this.”

Housemate. Karin is reminded of how young she is, how bad an idea this is. She digs into her shallow pit of empathy. “Your parents-?”

“They tried-” she stares up at the ceiling, “I went home for a while after the Rannoch case. Compassionate leave. Big mistake, really; they never wanted me joining the police, and it just confirmed everything they were scared of.”

Karin had forgotten how bad she was at conversations like this. “Means they care about you, though.”

“Does it?”

Karin shrugs in response and the room falls into silence, save for the low hum of the humidity-temp-optimiser. She idly tries to imagine the parents who voluntarily named their daughter a colour.

“It wasn't the videos and pictures that made me leave,” Blue says after a long few minutes; Karin thought she might have fallen asleep, “it was the… futility. He'd already done it all before we got him.”

“But you did get him. He's paying for what he did.”

“He's not though; not really,” she rolls over to face Karin and her breath is minty from Karin's toothpaste. “He's in solitary confinement for his own protection. He did all those things and he's worth protecting.”

“I’ve seen people do all kinds of fucked up shit,” Karin says, trying not to be patronising and only partially succeeding, “and if I lost sleep every time someone didn’t get what they deserved at the end of it I’d never get anything done.”

“That thing you said before; 'I've got to help stop that shit',”

“What about it?”

“Is that how you, you know, keep going?”

Karin shrugs again. “Pretty much.”

Her mouth quirks and it's not quite a smile, but as close to one as could be expected after the day she's had. “Me too.”

* * *

_18th May_

Karin wakes before Blue and spends a guilty few minutes watching her sleep before heading to the kitchen to make coffee. 

She tries not to think about what _she_ would say. She's probably found someone else already; no other parties were named in the divorce but Karin's got her suspicions which are usually correct. It makes her good at what she does, but it's no great comfort.

There’s nothing suitable for breakfast; the fridge and cupboards contain either junk food or well-intentioned vegetables with nothing in-between. She’s rummaging around in the freezer for potential bread when Blue wanders over.

“Morning.” Karin says, handing her a mug.

“Thanks.” Blue drinks it gratefully. The radio clicks on and quiet instrumental music fills the flat which means it’s 6am.

“Can I use your shower?” Blue asks once she’s drained the cup. Karin’s finished a mug too, and feels much better for it. 

“It’s through there. It’s one of those automatic things, you just walk in. There are towels on the side, you can use the blue one.”

“Easy to remember,” she says.

* * *

Karin remembers Blue making jokes about her own name as clear as day; the taste of coffee, the quiet hum of the radio, the sound of water running and then, when Blue comes out of the shower, the smell of her mixed with that of her own shampoo. Everything that happens after is a bit of a blur.

* * *

Blue isn't jealous when Karin frantically checks, heart in her mouth, that the ex – Karin hates her, and hates that she still cares - is okay. She is. Blue mentions that her housemate hasn't responded to any of her calls or messages, but before either of them can do anything, the four of them – Blue, Rasmus, Shaun and Karin – get yanked away to GCHQ to give statements. Karin wants to stay with Blue, but they're hauled into individual interview rooms. Blue and Rasmus are probably going into technical details she can't begin to understand, and she hopes that Shaun's getting a small fraction of what's coming to him, so Karin's the first one to be released. 

Karin is forcibly escorted back to the station. The emergency triage procedure that's been set up demands that she stay, but in the chaos she's able to sneak out. Politicians, public officials, even members of the fucking royal family have been reported dead; a temp from Hounslow is basically the bottom of the list, but Blue deserves this. Karin's badge gets her through the road cordons that have been set up, and the main roads have been cleared from where people died in their vehicles. 

Blue's landlady lets her into the flat, and when the metallic smell of blood hits her nostrils, Karin asks her to wait outside. Unlike Nick, who died much like Carla – the bee burrowing into some crucial tissue; horrifying to observe but mostly bloodless – Blue's housemate ended up more like Jo Powers, and had taken a kitchen knife to herself.

On the way back, Karin phones Blue's address through to the switchboard that's been set up in the aftermath, and a pre-recorded voice tells her she's 632nd in the queue, like she's calling to change fucking internet supplier. She calls in a favour and then messages Blue to promise her that someone will be round to pick up the body in 24 hours.

* * *

_19th May_

“Blue took the loss hard,” Karin will later tell a grand inquest, under oath. Most of her story is true; she can remember the days after were the hardest. Hundreds of thousands dead, neither of them had slept, showered or rested in nearly 48 hours; two of only a handful of people in the country who knew how and why this plague of biblical proportions was befalling the country, but unable to do anything to stop it. Nick was like a repeat of Carla, down to his death in Karin's arms, Blue wringing her hands beside her.

In her speech she sells Blue short, though; even with the shock and loss, there’s nothing to do except pitch in. Blue works as hard as anybody, and even as they’re pulled in a dozen different directions they’re able to help with the grunt work. Day turns to night and to day again, and Karin catches scraps of news between being wheeled from one briefing to another: the USA is considering shutting down its own automated drone programme in the wake of the events of May 18th; potential famine and irreparable damage to the ecosystem distant second concerns to a killer taking out anyone with a smartphone.

They’re running on coffee and adrenaline until the Commissioner personally tells them to get some rest.

In her statement Karin talks about Blue blaming herself, and she draws on details; pulling her hair, staring blankly out the window the entire ride back. She omits that the lift is to Karin's place - there's no question of letting her back to the bloodied apartment where she'll be by herself.

Details like _her lips wet and salty with tears pressing urgently against her own_ are carefully filtered.

When they get in the door Blue pushes her back towards the bedroom. It's not tender lovemaking that's a reminder that there's still some good in the world, nor is it animalistic sex so angry that it blocks out the terrible events of the last 24 hours. It simply is; a natural conclusion, the obvious response to the tragedy, and facts like _work colleague_ , and _ten years your junior_ fade into insignificance.

* * *

_20th May_

Karin wakes with a fuggy brain, clouded from sleeping too long. The sun straining through the electric blinds suggests it's the middle of the day. 

Memories of the past 48 hours surface, dreamlike, and Karin reaches over to the other side of the bed, unsure of what she'll find. There's no one there, and the sheets are cold. She fumbles for her phone on the nightstand but finds only the charging dock. Shit. 

She's naked, and clothes are scattered around the room, but that could mean almost anything. She pulls on underwear and a shirt, and finds her phone, battery dead, in the pockets of yesterday's trousers. 

She opens the bedroom door to see Blue sat at a stool in the kitchen, hunched over a laptop Karin recognises as her own. It's pretty surreal, she could still be dreaming, but Blue hears her and looks up and her expression tells Karin everything. 

“It happened?” Karin asks. It's more of a rasp, and Blue moves away from the computer to get her a glass of water. It's a herculean effort to make her legs carry her the short distance over to the kitchen. 

“Are you all right?” Blue steadies her for the final few steps before she collapses into a chair and the memories come flooding back. 

Blue watches her anxiously, but there's steel behind her eyes.

She downs the entire glass of water. The cold shifts some of the clouds around her brain and lets her focus. 

“What have you been doing?” Karin asks. 

“I'm going to catch him.” she says so fiercely Karin believes her. 

She was there yesterday, the night and day before; Blue and Rasmus spearheading an operation by the Met, the NSA, MI5, and more. Over 300,000 dead, and all the government had was a name. The USA, the EU, even fucking Russia calling the Prime Minister to offer condolences and promising whatever the UK might need to bring about justice. 

“The government doesn't have a clue,” she says; it's not a judgement, just a statement of fact. “They think he's still in this country.”

Karin can't argue with that.

“He's made his bed. Game of consequences.”

She finally understands what Blue means. She thinks about Nick and Carla and stupid cake-woman. “I'm going to help you.”

“I don't need your help-” she starts, then shakes her head. “You don't have to- he's good. He's really good, and he's dangerous. It's not safe.”

“I trust you.” it's not sentiment. Karin has known her less than a week and while she might be good for her in more ways than one, she's seen her work. Watched her figure out Scholes' plan before Shaun pressed the nuclear button. If anyone can find him, it's her. 

Blue looks conflicted. 

“Look, I can help you, too. They'll keep me on the investigation. I have access-”

“Can you make me disappear?” Blue pulls off her glasses, sets them on the table. 

Her parents. The investigation. If she leaves, she'll take so much with her. 

“There can't be a body.”

She'll have to stay with Karin until she leaves – Jordan is their best guess right now but she's worked enough cases to know he'll move, how he'll change his face; cover his tracks. It's like catching a shadow.

* * *

_21st May_

When Karin was a child – nine years old, maybe ten – there was a school trip to the High Kirk of Glasgow. The daughter of atheists, Karin had never really considered faith or religion, but remembers being awestruck at the sheer scale of the building. Her teacher had scolded her when she wandered away from the group, grimly fascinated by the graves and memorials for important people who died noble, dignified deaths.

The refrigerated warehouses are bastardised cathedrals. The grand space sickeningly full, and silence but for the engines of the forklift trucks unloading more bodies, each electronically tagged and draped with shrouds. Karin's faith in humanity, much less a benevolent creator, has never been smaller. The feeling of insignificance aches in her chest.

* * *

Karin gets used to sharing her space with someone again. She bought the flat post-divorce, a sterile bachelorette pad where she could watch shit tv and eat shittier food and fight with nobody. Karin returns to work and at night they often share the bed. Blue doesn't leave the flat, and Karin thinks the prospect of house arrest might make her go mad, but she finds Blue at three, four, five in the morning, poring over data streams that make no sense to her, and she supposes they've both gone a little crazy.

* * *

“Blue, your parents-”

“We have to do this,” she says, bright blue eyes slightly magnified by her glasses, “nobody can recognise me.”

She cuts her hair over the bathroom sink with Karin’s kitchen scissors. Karin tidies up the back, the bits she can't reach properly. When she’s done, Karin runs her hands through her shorn hair, watching Blue’s face in the mirror. 

Karin carefully tucks Blue's fringe behind her ear. “It looks like mine.”

Blue meets her eyes in the mirror, “I am your shadow.”

* * *

_Three months later_

Karin’s never been a good liar, but she’s sure everyone at the hearing and anyone who might watch the recording believes what she’s saying about Blue’s disappearance. She’d rehearsed her speech at home, in the too-quiet apartment without the tap-tap of a keyboard at all hours. The words come naturally, and the sadness that fills them is painfully genuine. She wonders if Blue might have found time and hacked a way to watch the broadcast, will make fun of her when she comes back for being such a sap.

Karin stays to listen to Sean’s statement after and tries to take pleasure in watching him squirm. She wants to lay all the blame for events, like the government and the court of public opinion, entirely at his feet, but he’s a guy who made a mistake. A colossal, history-altering mistake, but Karin knows that locking him up won’t make the world safer.

True justice is being carried out by her partner in crime. Karin takes comfort in the thought as more and more people take the stand. Accounts are collected and the scale of the tragedy is hashed out again and again.

By the time the inquest adjourns for the evening, Karin is exhausted. Slumped in the backseat, she doesn’t have the energy to be fazed by furious members of the public shouting and hitting their signs against her car.

Her phone buzzes.

Karin smiles, deletes the text, and starts counting the days until she can see Blue again.


End file.
